1) The primary objective of this study is to determine the response rate of oxaliplatin in patients with advanced carcinoma of the head and neck. 2) A second objective of the study is to characterize the toxicities of oxaliplatin in this patient group. 3) A third objective is to determine the duration of response, time to progression, and survival of study patients. 4) A fourth objective of this trial is to characterize the pharmacokinetics of oxaliplatin in this patient group. 5) A fifth objective of this study is to assess the level of DNA nucleotide excision repair in patient tumor tissue before and immediately after oxaliplatin therapy. 6) A sixth objective is to measure the effectiveness of oxaliplatin in inhibiting DNA replication using DNA obtained from tumor cells and peripheral blood lymphocytes. 7) A seventh objective is to assess alteration to apoptosis and cell cycle genes in patient tumor tisssue prior to and following oxaliplatin treatment. 8) An eighth objective is to assay patient tumor tissue for alterations of mismatch repair prior to therapy.